Diane Keaton, Woody Allen's muse and style icon

foto IPP/imagostock - The Big Wedding 2013 Robert De Niro & Diane Keaton

Born in Los Angeles on 5 January 1946, the future actress - whose real name was Diane Hall - began to show her talent already during her high school years, dabbling in singing and playing various roles in school plays.

Keaton was her mother's maiden name, but due to her strong desire to become a professional actress, her agent advised her to also use it to fake a relationship with Buster Keaton, an extraordinary director and actor in the silent era.

Before starting to work for the cinema, she devoted herself to the theatre and, in 1968, made her Broadway debut in 'Hair', before being cast in Woody Allen's play 'Try Again, Sam', which became a film in 1972 directed by Herbert Ross.

She made her film debut in 1970 in Cy Howard's 'Lovers and Other Strangers', but success came two years later for her performance in one of the greatest masterpieces of the decade: Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather', where she played the role of Kay Adams, Michael Corleone's wife, a role she continued to play in the subsequent chapters of the trilogy.

It was, however, his connection with Woody Allen that made his name even more important: that meeting for the audition of 'Try Again, Sam' was only the beginning of a long professional collaboration and an equally deep sentimental bond.

The actress starred in seven films by the great American director: 'The Sleepyhead' (1973), 'Love and War' (1975), the aforementioned 'Annie and I' (1977), 'Interiors' (1978), 'Manhattan' (1979), 'Radio Days' (1987) and 'Mysterious Murder in Manhattan' (1993).

Their professional union was so strong that they continued to work together even after their separation in 1978, demonstrating a connection between director and actress that was simply extraordinary, and that would see her tirelessly at his side, even in the dark years of accusations and scandals that followed the director's ruinous separation from his partner Mia Farrow.

In 'Mysterious Murder in Manhattan' he played the role that should have been Mia Farrow's, but she turned down the part after her separation from the director.

foto IPP/imagostock - film il padrino parte III The Godfather: Part III 1990 -

In addition to the films already mentioned, his great performance in the 1970s in Richard Brooks' drama 'In Search of Mr. Goodbar' (1977) should also be mentioned.

After her separation from Allen, Diane Keaton began a relationship with Warren Beatty, with whom she would make the film 'Reds' (1981), which led to her second Oscar nomination.

Her relationship with Beatty ended during the filming of the movie and, still on the private side, she then had a romance with Al Pacino, which ended in connection with the release of 'The Godfather - Part III' in 1990.

In the 1980s, however, we also remember her in Alan Parker's 'Shoot the Moon' (1982), George Roy Hill's 'The Drummer Girl' (1984), Gillian Armstrong's 'Winter Escape' (1984) or Bruce Beresford's 'Crimes of the Heart' (1986).

In the following decade, he continued to alternate between comedies and dramas, moving in the same year (1996) from Hugh Wilson's light-hearted 'The First Wives' Club' to Jerry Zaks' committed 'Marvin's Room', with which he obtained his third Oscar nomination.

foto IPP/imagostock - The Young Pope 2016 Diane Keaton

Her great comic verve, innate irony and ability to always put a smile on the audience's face with her great expressive gentleness led her to focus more and more on decidedly light films during the 2000s.

Among them is the film 'Call Waiting' in 2000, based on a novel by Nora Ephron and directed by Diane Keaton herself. It was not the first time that the actress also tried her hand behind the camera: she had already directed video clips, films for the cinema (e.g. 'Everyday Heroes' in 1995) and for television, as well as episodes of TV series, among which she directed one of the episodes of the second season of 'The Secrets of Twin Peaks', a masterpiece by David Lynch and Mark Frost.

In 2003, Nancy Meyers' film 'Anything Can Happen' was released, in which she earned a well-deserved fourth Oscar nomination for her touching performance alongside Jack Nicholson.

In recent years, she has worked in feature films of little note - from "Book Club" in 2018 to "Love, Death and Other Disasters" (2020), to name but a few - but, among her most recent roles, we especially want to remember her as the extraordinary Sister Mary in Paolo Sorrentino's "The Young Pope" (2016), where she gave a performance that once again confirmed her unique talent, capable of conveying with a simple smile or a slight change of expression all the inner emotions that her characters feel and that have made her an immortal actress whose looks will continue to be an inspiration in the years to come.